Right to Heal Tour in Colorado Springs

Our stop at the Gill Foundation, organized by the Colorado Springs Pikes Peak Peace and Justice Commission was a great chance to share more of our strategy and organizing tradition. A question from an audience member about how to do the work of Operation Recovery in “an air force town” enabled IVAW members to discuss the impact of military service no matter whether one sees “on-the-ground combat” or not. Issues of Military Sexual Trauma, for instance have an impact on all service members, and right in Colorado Springs the Air Force Academy has the highest rate of sexual assaults of any university. We shared our organizing model and tradition check out a rough cut of the video below.

The next day we accompanied several members of the PPPJC to Ft. Carson to do outreach, shared our technique doing outreach at Ft. Hood, hopefully planting the seeds for regular outreach efforts to start at Ft. Carson. Together we got twelve active duty contacts and for the folks in Colorado Springs/Denver, the confidence to try it again! One member of the PPPJC said “It sure is easier to hold a sign that talk to people, but this is what we need to be doing.”

Video from outreach training with PPPJC coming soon!